About Me

I thought my fairytale had come true when I married the man of my dreams - and in many ways, it has. But after 16 cycles of hope and disappointment followed by a trip to see a consultant and three failed ICSI attempts, we have a diagnosis of both severe oligozoospermia and diminished ovarian reserve to contend with, and wonder whether we'll ever get a chance to complete our family.

The clinics - dramatis personae

The old clinic - where we had ICSI #1 (October 2009) and ICSI #2 (November/December 2009)

Mr No Nonsense - the consultant, a man of few words who doesn't like to sugar the pill

Nurse Perfect - my favourite nurse

Nurse First Time - the nurse I saw on our first appointment, who is my second favourite

Nurse Not Quite - the other nurse

The XXXX clinic - where we had ICSI #3 in 2010

Mr Miracle Worker - the head consultant

Mr Greek God - the consultant we saw on our first appointment

Mr Wonderful - the consultant we saw most often during ICSI #3

Aussie Girl - the nurse we saw on our first appointment

Monday, 19 April 2010

A measure of peace

Actually, I could equally well have called this 'the calm before the storm'.

We could be starting IVF #3 in ten days from now. XXXX clinic's treatment is like no other that I've heard of - daily blood tests all the way through treatment, increasing to twice daily during the second week of stimming, with regular scans also needing to be fitted in and drug dosage being tailored to your blood test results daily. Every account I've read says that it's beyond exhausting, and in the second week you really can't concentrate on anything but following Mr Miracle Worker's instructions.

So we could have just ten more days of normality before the storm hits us. This weekend the weather was gorgeous - despite having to work all day Saturday, I enjoyed looking out of the study window to see the sunshine, and then yesterday we spent the afternoon in my sister's garden celebrating Niece #1's birthday.

The sunshine was great, I ate what I wanted, and #1 wanted party games, so we thought up endless games to play, laughed at the silly Mad Libs we made up, and generally enjoyed #1's exuberance and excitement at being (nearly - her birthday is tomorrow) 6.

When we got home, I had a long soak in a hot bath with a mug of hot milk close to hand and some good reading matter to keep me entertained.

And I realised that for the moment, life doesn't get better than this. It was a perfect day, and I need to appreciate and savour these perfect days as they come along, without ruining them by thinking of what might or might not be in the future.

So I have ten more days of living in the moment, and even though work will be busy, I can still enjoy the emergence of spring, the moments of fun and laughter, and spending time with my lovely DH in the evenings.

I can't change what will be, so I'm determined to try not to worry about it, but just to enjoy this time, and treat it as a time of living, and not a time of waiting.

4 comments:

Wow daily (and then bi daily!) blood tests!!! How exciting to be so well monitored. I'm slightly jealous as I am such a nerd when it comes to my ivf cycles and I like to know what is going on inside me so daily BTs would actually be something I'd look forward to. But I can see it would make the process even more intense than normal, but hey, you are a strong woman you can definately handle those things. Enjoy your last few days, it looks like I might be a day or so in front of you (but I won't speak too soon as this is all dependant on AF's arrival). Oh boy, are we ready to face this madness again?